They say that invention is the mother of necessity and that innovation is the key for the thriving of any growing nation. Technology is the new force that has been sweeping around the world for the least decades and there is no slowing down. Not with the kind of ideas that the youth are coming up with and bringing to fruition. It has also been continuously clear that incentives to innovators is quite the morale boost and which is a push in the right direction.
Take the Presidential Digital Talent Program for example – an internship program that is geared towards developing the ICT talent pool in Kenya through a collaboration between the public and private sectors. This program is implemented by Ministry of Information Communication and Technology through the ICT authority.
Enabling these young minds is a fantastic initiative since they are the ones who will carry the country’s technological baton into the future years. It is of great benefit to both Government and Private Sectors since it provides innovative products to both, and example being the Konza Data Center. Ultimately this is the right path to inevitable digital transformation.
Among those in private sector who have been at the forefront in supporting this program is Huawei which has been a key partner in this program for the fourth year running, and continues showing their strong commitment to supporting local ICT talent and local innovation.
As mentioned, part of the support coming through for the youth is morale boost. In July this year for example, the ICT Authority hosted the virtual graduation ceremony for talent program with Huawei Kenya being among the partners present as a sponsor for the Innovation Award. Huawei is giving the award either to individuals or a group of interns who have developed a unique idea that has the potential for major impact, and meets a proven need in society. The idea should also meet the criteria of being feasible, have a scalable business model and be relevant to the Government’s agenda.
This time round the overall winner was Traffic E-court which was developed by Annastacia Muisyo. Traffic E-Court works by making use of intelligent speed cameras to capture vehicle speed and then feed the information to a database that is used to send alerts to the owners mobile phone to pay a fine within a specific period of time or get court summons. Other winners were Crysis Nduku who was chosen from a very competitive shortlist of 3, with Mbae Lloyd Mawira taking the 1st runner up spot and Automated Token System rounding off the top 3.
Other winners included Serge Blockmans from EPI-USE East Africa who won the best Mentors Awards category and Jane Otoko from the Ministry of Health who won the best supervisor’s Awards category, among many others.
This kind of award is very key to the development of our youth as it challenges them to look out for opportunities and create innovations for them. With support from partners like Huawei who help in further developing and implementation of these ideas, the youth have quite the reason to continue trying things out. This is so considering that the top teams also receive a stipend and technical support.
During the awards ceremony Huawei Kenya which has always offered support in other additional ways like training and providing corporate internships also won the award for best private sector company supporting the Presidential Digital Talent Programme (PDTP).